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All kinds of reasons have been put forward for why plants apparently fail to make maximum use of the available light. None of these reasons can explain why after two billion years of evolution they are not black, like industrial photovoltaic solar cells. Are we missing something?

Monday afternoon 11 January saw the first Public Leadership Challenge: a gathering of professionals, academics and students. The theme was a hotly debated topic: the refugee crisis. Among the participants looking for solutions to this complex issue were four students from the (International) Leiden…

This pioneering project will answer this question by examining migrants through the eyes of the courts between 1600 and 1900. It aims to reveal patterns of continuity and change in: 1. Treatment of migrants by criminal courts; 2. Violence and conflicts between migrants and native born.

We would all like to live in a world in which individuals feel safe, conflicts are resolved peacefully and the interests of future generations are taken into consideration. At Leiden University legal scholars investigate to what extent public international law meets the needs of a globalised society.…

The Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum is proud to announce that we will host the second annual “IHL Clinic Exchange Conference”, from 8 to 14 December, in The Hague.

Following the New Year's speech of Dean Hanna Swaab a total of 4 prize winners were showered with praise and flowers during the new year's reception 10 January, 2017. Anthropologist Igor Boog won the Casimir Prize for best lecturer, pedagogue Ilona Schoep the Master Thesis Prize, political scientist…

Dr. Henk Schulte Nordholt, working at KITLV and LIAS, has been appointed extraordinary professor of Indonesian history for a five-year period.

Over the years, many spectacular archaeological finds have been washed ashore on the Dutch coast. Among these a large assemblage of barbed points made of bone and antler from the Mesolithic (11,000-8000 BC). The species used by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to manufacture their barbed points remained…

In 2013, Sylvestre Bonnet received an ERC Starting Grant to kill cancer with molecules that can be activated by light. Two postdocs and three PhD students later, the end approaches of his so far successful project.

Every year, the Netherlands Red Cross and Belgian Red Cross-Flanders organise the Frits Kalshoven IHL Competition. This competition aims to provide students with an opportunity to practically engage with IHL, the rules that govern the conduct of war, by attending expert lectures and workshops, engaging…

The KNMI has issued a code red weather warning because of slippery conditions. This applies from 03.00 on Monday 15 February. All university buildings, both in Leiden and The Hague, will therefore remain closed until at least 12.00. Update: the buildings will reopen after 12.00.

For the first time, physicists have visualized the ‘melting’ of electrons inside a special class of insulators. It allows electrons to move freely and turns the insulator into a metal and possibly later into a superconductor. Publication in Nature Physics.

For the first time research has been done on species literacy in the Netherlands. Children in primary schools know about 1 in 3 native animal species. Publication in Biological Conservation.

From 25-27 March, second-year students of the Advanced MSc in International Relations and Diplomacy (MIRD) took part in the programme's annual visit to Geneva, Switzerland. Students participated in institutional visits focusing on a wide range mandates in the field of International Relations and Dip…

For over a year now, the James Webb Telescope has been sending stunning images that exceed astronomers’ expectations. The photos are fascinating to see, but what exactly are we looking at? Assistant professor Melissa McClure explains.

‘Statistics? I hated that hard subject in school’, statistician Sanne Willems is often told. And that is a pity, she thinks, because statistics doesn’t necessarily have to be difficult. Together with two former fellow students, she set up a Statistics Communication section for good communication on…

The Dick Stufkens Prize 2017 for the best PhD thesis of the Holland Research School of Molecular Chemistry (HRSMC) is awarded to Dr Sven Askes. In his thesis

Public Defence by Jaap Brouwer and activities of prof. Marcel Cobussen PhD, Dick de Graaf, Nizar Rohana, Brigitte Kovacs, Lilo Nein, Danne Ojeda, Hans Kalliwoda, Frank Blokland, and Thalia Hoffman

Beautiful microscopic specimens play the leading role in the course 'Biodiversity Plant' for first-year Biology students. Normally these are put back in storage right after the course. But not this year!

Met groot plezier heeft de Universiteit Leiden van 1 tot 4 november het X Congreso Internacional de la Asociación de Hispanistas del Benelux (AHBx) georganiseerd, met het thema Transhispanismos: contactos y contagios (Transhispanismes: contact en besmetting). De AHBx is een platform in de Benelux dat…

A love of puzzles and the patience of a saint: these are two essential traits for linguists wishing to explore the Indo-European language family. Fortunately, Professor Michaël Peyrot possesses both. In his inaugural lecture he will take the audience on a voyage of discovery to the past.

According to Russian propaganda Ukrainians are Nazis and people from the West are Satanists. Egbert Fortuin thinks we should take this propaganda seriously.

As we are working very hard to make our University more green, it is of upmost importance that you join us in our battle and start increasing the local biodiversity from your own house! Every bit will help, it is beneficial for you own mental health and most importantly it is fun! We have created this…

A neural network mimics how our brain works. Evolutionary algorithms use the principle of natural selection to solve complex problems. This kind of 'natural computing' is being used to improve the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease or the production of steel.

Neural networks have a wide range of applications. In Leiden, psychologists use them to build robot brains, whereas archaeologists use them to hunt for prehistoric graves.

The research group Politics, Culture and National Identities 1789-present investigates a wide range of national political cultures in Europe and the Americas in the 19th and 20th centuries. Instead of only analyzing high politics (the acts of governments and political parties), the research group focuses…

Since 2005 Leiden fieldschools have maintained local collaborations with archaeologists on Martinique carrying out surveys and excavations.

Development of effective VR training for International Law of Armed Conflict (ILAC)

A computer can look at, and learn from, many more images than a human specialist. AI systems are rapidly becoming indispensable for medical and biological applications. But they still have to learn how to explain their decisions.

Beowulf clusters looking for new frontiers.

Imagine that you have a chronic skin condition, characterized by red patches of itchy, scaly skin. You regularly notice people staring at your skin and sense their reluctance to shake your hand. Or imagine that you have Parkinson's Disease, causing your hands to tremble and making it difficult for you…

Because we cannot directly ask babies about what they know or what they are thinking about, we must find smart and baby-friendly ways to figure it out! Below you can read about the different methods that we typically use in our studies.

There are around 300,000 people in the Netherlands who donate blood on a regular basis. Women can give blood up to three times a year and men up to five times, resulting in approximately one million blood donations each year. Patients that receive this donated blood are already in a vulnerable condition,…

Plants, algae and cyanobacteria have the amazing capacity to perform delicate photophysical and photochemical processes of light capture, excitation transfer, charge separation and catalysis in fluctuating living environments. As a consequence, photosynthetic proteins and membranes form dynamic architectures.…

The research group ‘Quantum and Society’ explores the boundary between quantum technology and science communication.

The aim of the research project is to get insight in the biostratigraphical age and the palaeoecological setting of the Schöningen sites and hominin behavior and subsistence during the late Lower Palaeolithic.

From the largest numbers to the smallest molecules and from the oldest galaxies up to the latest algorithms, explore our standout discoveries and most inspiring collaborations from the past year!

Promotores: G.R. de Snoo, B. Sinsin, Co-Promotor: H.H. de Iongh

Can dynamic testing provide us with insight in children’s potential for learning?

The dissociative chemisorption of a molecule on a transition metal surface represents a rate-limiting step in many heterogeneously catalyzed processes, whereby most chemicals are made. In spite of the importance of this reaction, an accurate first principles approach to modeling it does not yet exist.…

Team Jumbo-Visma is going for gold at the World Championships this weekend in Salt Lake City. For this, they have worked on a new special training method. The Data Mining and Sports group of the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) was involved in the development of this method.

The red carpet treatment of expats, terrorism studies and women professors who took over the Senate Chamber. These are the best read articles of 2018.

Dutch-Caribbean research will get a boost. Gert Oostindie, working at the Institute of History and KITLV, has received a grant from NWO, consisting of 750,000 euros, for his research project 'Confronting Caribbean challenges: hybrid identities and governance in small-scale island jurisdictions'.

Roderick Geerts, a PhD candidate of the Faculty of Archaeology in Leiden, takes us on a short journey through the rich history of the Red Sea port of Berenike in Egypt.